Statistics – Computation
Scientific paper
Jun 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007cqgra..24.3527.&link_type=abstract
Classical and Quantum Gravity, Volume 24, Issue 13, pp. 3527 (2007).
Statistics
Computation
Scientific paper
The study of braneworlds has been an area of intense activity over the past decade, with thousands of papers being written, and many important technical advances being made. This book focuses on a particular aspect of braneworlds, namely perturbative gravity in one specific model: the Randall-Sundrum model.
The book starts with an overview of the Randall-Sundrum model, discussing anti-de Sitter (AdS) space and the Israel equations in some detail. It then moves on to discuss cosmological branes, focusing on branes with constant curvature. The book then turns to brane gravity, i.e. what do we, as brane observers, perceive the gravitational interaction to be on the brane as derived from the actual five-dimensional gravitational physics? After a derivation of the general brane equations from the Israel equations, the remainder of the book deals with perturbative gravity. This part of the book is extremely detailed, with calculations given explicitly.
Overall, the book is quite pedagogical in style, with the aim being to explain in detail the topics it chooses to cover. While it is not unusual to have books written on current and extremely popular research areas, it is unusual to have calculations written so explicitly. This is both a strength and a weakness of this book. It is a strength because the calculations are presented in a detail that students learning the topic will definitely appreciate; however, the narrow focus of the book also means that it lacks perspective and fails to present the broader context. In choosing to focus on one particular aspect of Randall-Sundrum branes, the book has not managed to communicate why a large number of theorists have worked so intensively on this model.
In its early stages, the explicit detail of the Randall-Sundrum model would be extremely useful for a student starting out in this research area. In addition, the calculational detail later in the computation of the graviton propagator on the brane would also be welcome not only for starting researchers in this area, but also any researcher interested in the details of computing more general brane propagators. However, the book must be used with some caution as a guide to Randall-Sundrum theory, as it has a rather unusual perspective on the subject, and does not set it in a broader context. For example, it is well known in brane cosmology that the most general bulk solution contains a black hole, which is not discussed, the book preferring to immediately focus on the case of a pure AdS bulk. There is also no real discussion of how Randall-Sundrum links into string theory or phenomenology. One other problem with the book is that it does not reference the literature appropriately, I woould have expected a more comprehensive and accurate set of references accompanying a book which appears to be aimed at starting researchers in a subject.
The later stages of the book, in which the author deals in detail with the normalization of the graviton propagator, are rather involved and technical. A student would find this material rather heavy-going; however, the fine points of the discussion of Green's functions will be of use to those dealing with perturbations around more general branes.
In summary, the book is a tightly focused discussion of gravity in maximally symmetric Randall-Sundrum braneworlds. It will be useful as a companion text to starting researchers in the area, and other researchers should also find the more technical discussions of some use. However, one should note that the perspective of the book is somewhat narrow.
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